Counter-Constrained Finite State Machines: A New Model for Component Protocols with Resource-Dependencies

  • Authors:
  • Ralf Reussner

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • SOFSEM '02 Proceedings of the 29th Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics: Theory and Practice of Informatics
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

This paper deals with the specification of software component protocols (i. e., the set of service call sequences). The contribution of this paper is twofold: (a) We discuss specific requirements of real-world protocols, especially in the presence of components which make use of limited resources. (b) We define counter-constrained finite state machines, a novel extension of finite state machines, specifically created to model protocols containing dependencies between services due to their access to shared resources. Opposed to other approaches like classical finite state machines, this newmo del combines two valuable properties: (a) it is powerful enough to model realistic component protocols with resource allocation, -usage, and -deallocation dependencies between methods (as occurring in common abstract data-types such as stacks or queues) and (b) allows efficient checking of interoperability and substitutability.